'Mirzya' review: Impressive performance by Harshvardhan Kapoor & Saiyami Kher, but a one-time watch

Rating: ***1/2

Cast: Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher, Anuj Chaudhary, Art Malik

Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

The visual blandishments on offer in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's ' Mirzya', scripted by Gulzar, are plentiful and yet not enough to help the flashily mounted film paper over its rather thin and trite storyline.


The actors have been making headlines for their sizzling chemistry in the trailer. (Image: AFP)

In a bid to inject some novelty into the treatment of the love story, the director resorts to what are essentially tropes borrowed from theatre - the use of a sutradhar (narrator) and the employment of songs as a commentary on the action.

Mirzya moves between three distinct time-frames - one set in the distant past, the second some years ago in Jodhpur, and the third in the present in and around a royal palace in Rajasthan - to showcase the ageless saga of Mirza and Sahiban, whose unrequited love is the stuff of legend.

But the film is unable to generate the emotional intensity that is needed to turn a story of doomed love across two lifetimes into a drama riveting enough for an audience looking for instant emotional connect.


Harsh manages to give glimpses of his vulnerability and intensity as a performer. (Image: Facebook)

What unfolds on the screen remains there - static, bland and superficial - despite the sparkling camerawork by Polish director of photography, Pawel Dyllus, and the sheer depth and power of the poetry with which lyricist Gulzar occasionally infuses the film's huge complement of songs.

Newcomers Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher are a fetching sight as they play the young lovers whose passion for each survives for eons but cannot find a way around societal opposition to attain consummation.


Harshvardhan, Saiyami and ​Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra pose for shutterbugs during an event. (Image: BCCL)

In a contemporary reworking of the tale, the film homes in on a school-going boy and a police officer's daughter who dote on each other. But in a tragic turn of events, the classmates are separated.

Watch the trailer below: